The white supremacist behind the anti-sharia bills

Last week, legislators in Tennessee introduced a radical bill that would make “material support” for Islamic law punishable by 15 years in prison.

The proposal marks a dramatic new step in the conservative campaign against Muslim-Americans. If passed, critics say even seemingly benign activities like re-painting the exterior of a mosque or bringing food to a potluck could be classified as a felony.

The Tennessee bill, SB 1028, didn’t come out of nowhere. Though it’s the first of its kind, the bill is part of a wave of related measures that would ban state courts from enforcing Sharia law. (A court might refer to Sharia law in child custody or prisoner rights cases.) Since early 2010, such legislation has been considered in at least 15 states. And while fears of an impending caliphate are myriad on the far-right, the surge of legislation across the country is largely due to the work of one man: David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based white supremacist who has previously called for a “war against Islam” and tried to criminalize adherence to the Muslim faith.

Yerushalmi, a lawyer, is the founder of the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which has been called a “hate group” by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). His draft legislation served as the foundation for the Tennessee bill, and at least half a dozen other anti-Islam measures – including two bills that were signed into law last year in Louisiana and Tennessee.

But Tennessee’s SB 1028 goes much further, defining traditional Islamic law as counter to constitutional principles, and authorizing the state’s attorney general to freeze the assets of organizations that have been determined to be promoting or supporting Sharia. On Monday, CAIR and the ACLU called for lawmakers to defeat the bill. “Essentially the bill is trying to separate the ‘good Muslims’ from the ‘bad Muslims,'” said CAIR staff attorney Gadeir Abbas in an interview with Mother Jones. “Out of all the bills that have been introduced, this is by far the most extreme.”

But it’s not just Muslims who draw Yerushalmi’s scorn. In a 2006 essay for SANE entitled On Race: A Tentative Discussion, Yerushalmi argued that whites are genetically superior to blacks. “Some races perform better in sports, some better in mathematical problem solving, some better in language, some better in Western societies and some better in tribal ones,” he wrote.

Yerushalmi has suggested that Caucasians are inherently more receptive to republican forms of government than blacks – an argument that’s consistent with SANE’s mission statement, which emphasizes that “America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white.”

And in an article published at the website Intellectual Conservative, Yerushalmi, who is Jewish, suggests that liberal Jews “destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.” Unsurprisingly, then, Yerushalmi offered the lone Jewish defense of Mel Gibson, after the actor’s anti-semitic tirade in 2006. Gibson, he wrote, was simply noting the “undeniable Jewish liberal influence on western affairs in the direction of a World State.”

OK, this man is a walking oxymoron (emphasis moron). Does he realize that virtually all white-supremacist groups would hate HIM because he is Jewish, even if he agrees with their perspective of Jews? They won’t care that he agrees with them – he’s still blood, and it’s the blood that makes one inferior; therefore, he himself is considered inferior by them. My feeling is that he is conflicted and actually hates himself, so he is projecting that hatred on to others. Or preemption as a defense mechanism.

//Wendy 1 March 2011 at 11:12 am

Sorry – only “HIM” was supposed to be in italics. Not the rest of the comment.

//Wendy 1 March 2011 at 11:13 am

Q: What part of the 1st Amendment do these guys not understand?
A: All of it!

—

Fortunately, this is a chance for the good people of Tennessee to remind the racists why they lost in 1865. Peacefully of course!

So with the first amendment in place I should be able to create my own religion in which every other Sunday we sacrifice one of the elders of the congregation?

//LoveThemMoonbats 1 March 2011 at 11:42 am

“Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which has been called a “hate group” by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR.”

Isn’t that like the coffee calling the kettle black?

//LoveThemMoonbats 1 March 2011 at 11:44 am

By the way, what does sharia law have to do with race?

//LoveThemMoonbats 1 March 2011 at 11:46 am

It is irrational to believe that the United States Constitution and Sharia can coexist. In Islam, there is a foundational belief that mankind may not make laws, that Allah’s law must favor Muslims, and that there is an affirmative duty to advance the dominion of Islam, and thus sharia. Although some point out the scope, justice, and mercy contained in Sharia, it nevertheless remains true that real countries base their real law on what they insist is Sharia. When a woman is stoned to death on a specious charge of adultery, it is Sharia, as defined by the ruler, that provides the moral sanction for the sentence. In the United States, Muslims are free to embrace the theology of their choosing, but they are not free to justify political totalism as a religious tenet. Freedom of religion should be supported, but religionists are not free to make or impose their own laws.

//Tehzeeb 1 March 2011 at 12:30 pm

So with the first amendment in place I should be able to create my own religion in which every other Sunday we sacrifice one of the elders of the congregation?
//LoveThemMoonbats

Yes. Please be sure to start with yourself.

//toasterhead 1 March 2011 at 12:53 pm

“Yes. Please be sure to start with yourself.”

Well look at that, a little bit of hate from the left?

//LoveThemMoonbats 1 March 2011 at 1:58 pm

LoveThemMoonbats: “Well look at that, a little bit of hate from the left?”

Why, yes indeed. We save our hatred for those who earn it.

//Leigh Williams 1 March 2011 at 6:52 pm

Would this law also outlaw the sale of Quaker Grits on the grounds that they are certified halal?

//Rich Mestetsky 1 March 2011 at 9:14 pm

The white supremacist behind the anti-sharia bills…

The proposal marks a dramatic new step in the conservative campaign against Muslim-Americans. If passed, critics say even seemingly benign activities like re-painting the exterior of a mosque or bringing food to a potluck could be classified as a felon…

The real white supremacists must be laughing their pants off at this guy. They do not consider Jews to be white, even Jews of European ancestry. And with a name like Yerushalmi, unless he changed it, he must have non-Caucasian ancestry somewhere in his background. I’m ashamed of this excuse for a Jew. Judaism, like Islam, is not a race – there are Jews of all shades, from all parts of the world.

//Miriam Rubinoff 2 March 2011 at 3:11 pm

Zionist Jews and White Supremacists are twin cheeks on the same backside. This sort of collaboration is nothing new. Go pick “Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers” and “50 Documents proving Zionist collaboration with Nazi Germany” from Amazon. You can find them heavily supportive of racist mob movements in Europe these days.
Typical of the breed.